“It was awful for me”: the scene Martin Scorsese could barely bring himself to shoot
Filmmaking is a challenge, and even the most acclaimed directors come across hurdles that feel difficult to conquer. Martin Scorsese isn’t afraid to admit that he has struggled immensely when making movies; I mean, you’d have to be a robot to find the task of creating a film easy.
Having directed hits like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and the Oscar-winning Raging Bull, by the early 1980s, he was ready for something a little more comedic, although still steeped in darkness, of course. The result was The King of Comedy, which would come to serve as a significant inspiration for Todd Phillips’ Joker decades later.
Reuniting with Robert De Niro yet again, Scorsese explored one man’s desperate attempts to become a famous comic through a satirical lens, but the movie flopped in comparison to his previous efforts.
Scorsese was hurt badly when the movie was received negatively, because he felt it to be deeply personal. “I haven’t seen it since I made it. It’s too embarrassing,” he once revealed via Conversations with Scorsese by Richard Schickel, “It’s very unsettling”.
There was one scene in particular that really tested Scorsese, and he admits that there are elements of this specific sequence, in which a receptionist, played by Margo Winkler, won’t let Rupert through, that he couldn’t even fully explain back then, but he can now. It also took ages to shoot, with Scorsese struggling to get it just right.
“That scene is great. It took days. I just couldn’t get through it,” he added. “It took six, seven days to shoot. It was scheduled for two and a half days, and it could have been done in that time. But there was something… For example, in the case of the receptionist relationship, if you’re trying to get to see Jerry, you have to get past the elevator operator. And then the receptionist and then Jerry’s assistant,” he said.
While it might seem like a simple scene, the filmmaker knew how important it was to communicate vital information about the characters, especially the resistance facing Rupert in trying to get what he wants. “It was so sad. The poor guy wants to get in there. He can’t get past her. He tries to make himself likeable, and yet there’s all this extraordinary violence and hostility in him. I can articulate all that now. I couldn’t articulate it then,” Scorsese added, “It was awful for me.”
Despite the challenge of bringing a scene to life that he needed get just right, he didn’t falter under the pressure, making a movie that, for many years, has gone incredibly under the radar. The filmmaker might still be bitter about the film’s initially hostile reception, but it has since gone on to earn a legacy as a cult classic, praised for its darkly satirical look at fame.
Whether you like The King of Comedy, you can’t deny the power of subtlety that Scorsese employs, and this scene that he almost “couldn’t get through” is a perfect example.
